To the Editor of the "Norra-Cutna Davty News."
Sir,—The Municipal Gazette this morning announces the appointment of a new Acting Head Mistress in the Public School for Girls in place of Miss Patterson who is retiring, and the fact that the Education Committee sees fit to appoint a married woman to the position is an act of gross injustice to the many single women employed as assistant mistresses in the Council's schools.
First, though, let me say that we must all admire the splendid motives which have driven married women into the schools during the past few years. Their services were valuable during the war; some married women still need to teach since the cost of living is high, and husbands' salaries small others have children growing up whose education is causing pressing need for more funds in the home. Against a continuance of "the services of these women ifn schools no reasonable person can raise any objection—theirs is re-grottable necessity.
The case of the future Head is entirely different. Apart from her salary as a teacher, the lady is fortunately placed in what, to most of us, would be very comfortable circumstances, and maintain that any woman who has a husband who can at all adequately provide for her needs and for those of their children, has no right to hold a position in the world of working women at all, It is her duty to get out and make room for a single woman to whom the job means bread and butter.
It is of course true that a candidate's financial position is not usually taken into account when an appointment is made; fit is qualifications which count—or should count—but I venture to say that there are single women in the Council's employ whose, qualifications and abilities are equal to those of the woman appointed. This position is one of the rare plums in the Educational Service. and competition among. women workers is keen enough these days, as those who have worked know.
Therefore, other things being equal, if the choice is to lie be-. tween the one who teaches for bread and butter, and the one who teaches for a hobby, doesn't it stand to all reason and fairness that it should fall on the former?
Enclosing my card, T am, ete.,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.